Ask me anything about Alberta politics
Daveberta readers ask about health care privatization, early election speculation, and small nuclear reactors
With the end of summer fast approaching and the Labour Day long-weekend just days away, I’ve opened up the mailbag to answer a few Alberta politics questions sent in by Daveberta subscribers.
Oh asks: What makes the UCP think Albertans want privatized healthcare? Has this desire actually been articulated by the public?
I have a hard time believing that Albertans want more privatized health care but I do believe that a lot of Albertans agree that our public health care system is facing big challenges.
There was a lot of media attention on Premier Danielle Smith comments this week when she told United Conservative Party supporters at a member-only town hall meeting in Drayton Valley that she is considering removing hospitals from Alberta Health Services and introducing more competition into the health care system.
Long-signalled intentions
While this was presented as a new development in much of the media coverage, this is actually consistent with what Smith has been saying for many years.
While Smith alluded in her comments to the publicly-funded non-profit Catholic health care provider Covenant Health, her preferred solution for the problems facing public health care has always been to introduce more private-for-profit interests.
We saw this 15 years ago when Smith defended a bankrupt private surgery clinic in Calgary and, more recently, when she laid out her plans in detail in a non-peer-reviewed paper published by the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy in June 2021 (Smith’s paper remained under the radar until it was reviewed by Bob Ascah, the former director of the University of Alberta’s Institute for Public Economics). Smith also presented her plan to remove Alberta’s large public hospitals from AHS in a speech to the Freedom Talk libertarian conference in 2021.
And when Smith ran for leader of the UCP in 2022, one of her key pledges was to seek revenge on AHS, largely because of the health authority’s role in promoting and enforcing public health measures during the COVID-19 pandemic (the firing of Dr. Deena Hinshaw was a key part of this promise).
Following through
Smith’s past comments play a big guiding role in the drastic overhaul of the health care system that the UCP started implementing after they were re-elected in 2023.
The UCP is moving forward with plans to dissolve and divide AHS into four separate administrative silos focusing on acute care, primary care, continuing care, and mental health and additions. It is not clear why the UCP chose this model and it feels like they are making many of these decisions on the fly.
It feels unlikely that a huge administrative overhaul will solve the big staffing shortages and funding problems that have led to regular temporary closures of emergency rooms and obstetric departments in small town and rural hospitals across Alberta.
Long-game privatization
While the acute care, primary care, and continuing care silos are expected to carved out of AHS this fall, we can already see increased privatization in the mental health and addictions silo, now called Recovery Alberta.
The creation of the Recovery Alberta silo, a project of Premier Smith’s Chief of Staff Marshall Smith, has included the opening of publicly-funded treatment centres run by outside groups and the launch of a privately-owned app, which is now mandatory in publicly funded detox and residential recovery facilities (and is raising concerns about privacy, consent and transparency).
Proposals for a private company to run an urgent care centre in Airdrie and a private-public partnership (P3) to construct and own a new building to house a downgraded replacement for the aging hospital in Beaverlodge represent drastic changes to how the public health care system is operated.
Will Albertans let it happen?
While Smith has been consistent with her support of private health care, I’m not convinced the UCP has actually articulated a strong case for privatization as the solution to the public system’s woes. What the UCP has presented is drastic change, which there might be an appetite for, but when Albertans take a closer look Smith’s plans they might not like the direction her government is steering the health care system.
As Dr. Tom Noseworthy, Professor of Health Policy and Management at the University of Calgary, wrote in Alberta Views magazine in 2019:
In my mind, putting money and energy into strengthening the publicly funded and delivered healthcare system will pay a greater dividend than increasing for-profit delivery. Most health services in the public system perform at-scale as well as or better than privately delivered ones. As an added benefit, publicly funded and delivered healthcare is more equitable, particularly for the disadvantaged in society, who can least afford to be excluded.
A recent Leger survey showed that health care remains the number one issue of importance to Albertans. The same poll showed only 25 percent of Albertans approved how the UCP government is handling health care, with 60 percent saying they disapproved.
Public opinion not being on Smith’s side leaves a big opportunity for Naheed Nenshi’s NDP to challenge the UCP government’s health care overhaul and tilt towards privatization. But if the NDP don’t offer their own progressive criticisms and solutions to the challenges facing the public health care system, the opposition party could be seen as defending the status quo, letting the UCP own the “change” narrative on health care.
Omar asks: What are the chances that the Premier calls a snap election around the same time the federal Liberals call an election (assuming Justin Trudeau is the PM?) Based on what we know today, it is her surest bet to win yet another majority.
I love writing about elections and this would give me a lot of write about but I don’t think it’s going to happen.
The UCP won a majority in May 2023 and don’t have to call an election until October 2027. With most voting intention polls showing Alberta’s provincial landscape still competitive between the UCP and NDP, calling an election this early would be very risky.
The next federal election is scheduled to happen in October 2025 at the same time as Alberta’s municipal and school board elections. Adding an election for a third level of government would definitely mix things up but would be very confusing for a lot of voters (especially with the UCP allowing for the creation of municipal political parties).
While I don’t think a provincial election is likely next year, there is a chance that the UCP could add a referendum question to municipal ballot like they did in 2021. If the UCP continues to move forward with plans to withdraw Alberta workers from the Canada Pension Plan and create a new Alberta Pension Plan, this might be when they hold a vote on it.
Mildred asks: What is happening on the nuclear energy front in Alberta? SNRs?
Nuclear energy is something I know a little bit about but not a lot about.
The governments of Alberta and Saskatchewan signed a Memorandum of Understanding in May 2024 to “advance the development of nuclear power generation in support of both provinces’ need for affordable, reliable and sustainable electricity grids by 2050.” And in January 2024, Capital Power and Ontario Power Generation released a statement saying they had “entered into an agreement to jointly assess the development and deployment of grid-scale small modular reactors (SMRs) to provide clean, reliable nuclear energy for Alberta.”
It is my understanding that supporters of small modular reactors argue it generates less power than a conventional plant and can be manufactured elsewhere and assembled on site.
Minister of Affordability and Utilities Nathan Neudorf told reporters in March 2024 that "We're also very interested in looking at conventional nuclear and what that could possibly provide for Alberta in ... the longer term.”
A quick search of the Alberta Lobbyist Registry shows three lobbying companies currently lobbying on behalf of nuclear industry interests in Alberta. Hill & Knowlton is the registered lobbyist for the Nuclear Waste Management Organization, New West Public Affairs is lobbying for the Canadian Nuclear Association, and StrategyCorp Inc. is registered to lobby for GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy Americas LLC and the Organization of Canadian Nuclear Industries.
While recent opposition to nuclear power generation in Alberta has been more muted than in the past, the Alberta Wilderness Association issued a statement opposing nuclear development in Alberta: “Due to the serious environmental and economic risks of nuclear energy, AWA believes that nuclear power development is not consistent with the maintenance of wilderness or with healthy, economically diverse, and sustainable human communities. Safer, cheaper, and more reliable options should be pursued to generate power.”
There are a lot of legitimate criticisms of nuclear power, but it does feel like there has been a somewhat successful effort by supporters of nuclear power to promote it as a solution to carbon-intensive coal and natural gas electricity generation.
Premier Smith is no fan of wind and solar power and continues to promote the idea that Alberta can double the amount of oil and gas production, which suggests to me that her government might be more inclined to support more natural gas or hydrogen developments before going nuclear.
Thank you to Oh, Omar, and Mildred for sharing your Alberta politics questions. If you would like to submit a question, post it on the Daveberta subscriber chat (click the button below) and I will answer your question in an upcoming newsletter.
Lethbridge-West by-election
The Bridge City News reports that Lethbridge City Councillor and former police chief John Middleton-Hope, former UCP constituency assistant Erin Leclerc, and real estate agent Shauna Gruninger are running for the UCP nomination in Lethbridge-West. A nomination vote will take place on September 23.
Former City Councillors Bridget Mearns and Rob Miyashiro are running for the NDP nomination. NDP members will vote to select their candidate at a meeting on September 7.
A by-election to replace former NDP MLA Shannon Phillips needs to be called by January 1, 2025.
Federal candidate nomination updates
Here are the latest updates to the list of federal party candidate nominations in Alberta:
Liberal MP George Chahal has been nominated to run for re-election in the new Calgary McKnight riding. Chahal was first elected in 2021 in the Calgary Skyview riding and previously served on Calgary City Council from 2017 to 2021.
The Conservative Party has closed membership sales in Edmonton Centre. Former Conservative MP James Cumming is facing a strong challenge from former UCP candidate Sayid Ahmed (sources close to the campaign tell me that Ahmed has sold a significant number of memberships in the riding). The riding is currently represented by Liberal MP Randy Boissonnault.
Mathew Jammaz has joined the NDP nomination contest in Edmonton Manning. Jammaz and Lesley Thompson will face a nomination vote on November 2.
Kara Levis has ended her campaign for the Liberal Party nomination in Calgary Confederation. Levis was the Alberta Party candidate in Calgary-Klein in the 2019 provincial election and ran for the Alberta Party leadership in 2018. She served on the National Board of the Liberal Party of Canada as the Chair of the National Women’s Liberal Commission from 2016 to 2018.
A few more things:
Laurie Pushor announced last week that he will not seek to renew his contract as President and CEO of the Alberta Energy Regulator when it expires in April 2025. Pushor returned to Alberta in 2020 after serving as a Deputy Minister in the Saskatchewan government. Before relocating to Alberta’s eastern neighbour, Pushor had a career in Alberta politics as executive assistant to Premier Ralph Klein and a senior aide to PC cabinet ministers Peter Elzinga and Marv Moore in the early 1980s. He was the PC candidate in Edmonton-Meadowlark in the 1993 and 1997 elections.
Former MLA Doug Main has launched a new conservative municipal political party called the Principled, Accountable Coalition for Edmonton (PACE) ahead of next year’s elections in Edmonton. Main was a well-known TV news anchor in the 1970s and 1980s and served one term as the Progressive Conservative MLA for Edmonton-Parkallen from 1989 to 1993. Main’s PACE party joins gondola-enthusiast Jeffrey Hansen-Carlson’s TAPYEG party and two-time Ottawa Conservative candidate Abdul Abdi’s Edmonton Forward police advocacy group on the unofficial list of political parties planning to contest next year’s municipal elections in Edmonton.
- at Popular Information writes about the big corporations sponsoring the upcoming Canada Strong & Free Network (formerly the Manning Centre) conference in Red Deer featuring American right-wing “anti-woke” crusader Chris Rufo.
Thank you for reading
We are now more than halfway through 2024 and there’s no shortage of topics in Alberta politics that I want to write about! I’m happy to share a full-version of today’s Daveberta newsletter for free to the nearly 4,400 people who have subscribed on Substack.
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Thanks,
Dave
Lots here that one could comment on, but I'll limit myself to the nuclear power issue. Everything I've seen about this talks about how clean and safe it is; but doesn't talk about what happens to the spent fuel - radioactive material with a half-life of tens of thousands of years. I'm not aware that there is any technology that can address this, and all the experience to date indicates that it is enormously expensive to deal with. If (some) people are opposed to solar because the solar panels have to be replaced every decade or two, that is nothing compared to radioactive material in the environment.
It's good to see that Leger poll, but, I think that people want change, any of kind of change, more than they don't want privitization. Kind of an "anything is better than this" scenario. When I talk to my right-leaning friends and family, they say that what we're doing now isn't working so we have to try something new. Health care is so dire right now. And about to get worse!